Hosting Unlimited sold

[Gordy]

Just got this in my inbox

Server Centre Limited (www.servercentre.net) is based in Derby and is a strong provider of Windows-based web hosting, having been established for over 4 years. The time is right for us to break into the Linux web hosting market, and we are delighted to have found a strong brand that has been run with the same customer-focused philosophy which Server Centre is built on:- “Reliable, Support Driven Web Hosting” We believe that the integration of the two companies will result in a service provider which is greater than the sum of its parts. Senior management have already been working together to ensure that there is minimal disruption to our customers, and will continue to do so over the coming weeks. I am sure by now you are wondering how this will affect you. To clear up a few queries you may have, there will be no changes to the prices or your hosting plans, and we will not be moving your accounts to new servers. The benefits from the recent server upgrade programme are already being felt, and whilst inevitably there has been some disruption in view of the size of the project, this is diminishing and will disappear completely when the programme ends shortly. You can still expect the same level of high customer service with a dedicated support team to resolve your queries 24 hours 7 days a week. Invoices will be sent in the normal manner, and the name on your credit/debit card statement will now read ‘Server Centre Limited’. Customers who are using FuturePay agreements will be contacted individually with details of some administrative changes. We are pleased to announce that an enhanced range of products and services will be available to you soon, such as Dedicated Servers, Windows Web Hosting and managed hosted applications. Details will be made available on the website in the coming weeks and we will notify you of any special offers and discounts which will be available. If you have any questions or concerns, please raise them on the forums or by email (adam.heavens@hosting-unlimited.net). I am personally excited by my role as Managing Director, and Dougie, Kevin and I are in no doubt that this fusion of our two businesses means that you can look forward to a strong and reliable hosting experience, with a renewed emphasis on personal attention. I look forward to speaking with you all. Best Regards Adam Heavens Managing Director
Generated by Hosting-Unlimited .:. Great Value Hosting All Of The Time

Certainly interesting.

[Stoo]

Might explain some of the downtime?

They might be able to offer semi-professional levels of service now then..

[Gordy]

Can't but help with that really stoo

[Tobeman]

I am yet to recieve that email

I'm not sure if I'm keen on all this hoo-har going on in the last few months, I just want a reliable hassle free service. Most nights this week I've been unable to get hold of my IMAP emails.

Grrr, I'm starting to want out but not wanting the hassle of moving

[gss03]

That'll explain the cancellation of my futurepay agreement....and also the woolly reply I got from the support desk enquiring about why it'd been canceled!

Although I've generally had no trouble with my HU accounts...a merging of services can hopefully mean a better service.......(heres hoping!)

[menthel]

Why do I never receive these emails? Lets hope things don't go wrong with this take over.

[zappaDPJ]

As a fairly longstanding customer of HU with 5 hosting packages there I guess I shouldn’t be surprised to find this information while browsing here a not via any of my accounts.

I also find it quite ironic that I should choose this of all weeks to move my sites away from HU to a more robust platform. I note that Adam has already been very busy on the HU forums explaining away why most of their services have been down over the weekend including the support system. To be honest he’d do better to inform HU customers when the servers are actually working as it would be a lot less work.

Oh well things can’t possibly get any worse than they have been for the last year so my best wishes to all the remaining HU customers who have chosen to stick with them.

PS: sorry to open my account here with a rant but in 47 years of life I can honestly say I’ve never come across any company operating with such ineptitude and I really needed to vent.

[Tobeman]

I've been pretty narked off that I haven't been able to access my IMAP email accounts for the majority of the weekend. Don't have any POP3 accounts so I don't know about that, grrr!

[Gordy]

Just got another update:

Server Updates

I am sure you have noticed that some of the servers have been rebooted more than normal over this last week. I would like to take this opportunity to tell you why this has happened and what you can now expect.

We have spent the first week since taking over Hosting-Unlimited.net making sure that all the servers meet our minimum security requirements. This has included updating the kernel, adding grsecurity and applying updates to all applications running on the servers, on some of the servers this has been as many as 150 updates! On top of this we have added additional security software, firewall rules and turned off all non-essential services.

There has been a few bugs found whilst these updates have taken place, which have now been resolved.

Going forward any updates or reboots will be carried out between the hours of 3-4am GMT, as this is the quietest period and will have the least amount of impact on your website. You will be informed of any potential service interruptions before work commences and a further email will be sent out on completion.

We can now concentrate our efforts on adding additional features and improving your hosting experience. We are so confident about the server updates that we will be updating the SLA to 99.9% availability with service credits for any downtime. More details will be made available over the next couple of weeks.
The migrations that were started in early August are nearly at an end, we have a handful of sites left to move to the new servers and this should be completed by the end of next week. There has been a number of teething problems but all outstanding issues have now been addressed. I would like to thank you all for your patience throughout this project.
Please don't hesitate to contact me with any questions or queries.

Best Regards

Adam Heavens
Managing Director
Server Centre Limited t/a hosting-unlimited.net

well that explains a few things about how badly the HU servers were maintained.

[Nick F]

some of the servers this has been as many as 150 updates!

That's quite shocking, now hopefully everything will be okay as they really do provide a cheap web hosting package. £22 for a year's hosting with everthing you could ever need is pretty decent.

[Tobeman]

I use HU for my home account, but looking to set up another for testing a few bits and bobs for work. Any suggestions? I've heard many good things about A Small Orange, only thing that puts me off is that they are based in the US

Ideally, I'm after decent support. I find the Support Ticket system on HU ok, but some quick support via IRC or something similar would be handy.

Suggestions please?

[Gordy]

34sp.com have irc support

[Atomic]

Woohoo! No more Dougie!